


two moons

by iluxia



Category: Naruto
Genre: AKA these idiots, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Divorce, F/M, Happy Ending, Headcanon, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Marriage, Naruto Deserves Happiness, OTP Feels, Or liberal use thereof, Philosopher!Kakashi, Philosophy, Pre-Chapter 700 (Naruto), Some elements of Boruto, Somewhat Ignores 700, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 02:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15809553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluxia/pseuds/iluxia
Summary: Paths diverge after the Fourth War, in this new world Naruto works hard to build. He holds his highest dreams within his hands, but is he happy? [Picks up post-Kaguya, some elements of Boruto & post-700 but not entirely adherent.]"When they were together, they had no need of words. Their touch, their breath, their heat was enough. They had no need of the future or the past; they had no need to cling to ideals or dreams. Sometimes the path leading into the light of happiness was found in the dark."





	two moons

**Author's Note:**

> This is the author's very liberal post-war headcanon, which may or may not warrant continuation. Not sure yet. Before you get any further, let me warn you that **I KNOW NOTHING** of Boruto: The Next Generation except for what I've stumbled upon in Tumblr or in fanfics. I do know that Naruto has two children, but I'm placing this at a time when Himawari hasn't yet been born.

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.  
– Ayn Rand

The secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom is courage.  
– Carrie Jones, _Need_  
  
The past may or may not be a foreign country. It may morph or lie still, but its capital is always Regret, and what flushes through it is the grand canal of unfledged desires that feed into an archipelago of tiny might-have-beens that never really happened but aren’t unreal for not happening and might still happen though we fear they never will. _  
_ – Andre Aciman, _Enigma Variations_

  


* * *

  


_He’s come back for her._

Those are the first words in Naruto’s head as soon as he sees them down the street, under the shadow of the trees, taking each other into arms, laughing as they did when they were children. Well, maybe not quite; none of them can laugh like that anymore, not really. Not after all they’ve seen and done, all they’ve fought and lost. But the smile is radiant on her face, a face so familiar and warm, a smile Naruto hasn’t been able to bring out in her for some time now. The unfortunate truth.

“Hokage-sama? Is there something that needs to be corrected?”

Naruto looks down at the scroll in his hand, then flicks a look up at Shikamaru, and then turns back to the jounin awaiting her orders. “Nothing. Solid work, Matsumoto. Take your team out for yakiniku or something, you deserve it.”

Matsumoto, a chuunin who survived the Great War to become one of Naruto’s best jounin, bows with visible pleasure and takes her team to leave. Naruto scribbles his signature on the scroll, affixing the Hokage’s seal upon the bottom and wondering how many more times he has to do this before it feels real. “Kiba’s back,” he notes as Shikamaru moves to the window to look at whatever Naruto was looking at. “Should have some good intel on that mess brewing in Taki.”

“You know, you should really stop trying to deflect with me,” Shikamaru idly remarks, “because you’ll always suck and I’ll always know.”

That, at least, is worth the effort of a smile. “So why are we still talking about it?”

“We aren’t. After all, there’s nothing to talk about, right?”

Turning to find the scrolls they had about Taki’s recent mishaps, Naruto avoids Shikamaru’s all-knowing gaze. He runs warm fingers over the familiar beads resting around his wrist, their dark, smooth surfaces reflecting nothing back at him. A habit.

“Got it in one, Shika. Nothing at all.”

  


* * *

  


When Naruto was eighteen, under Kakashi’s tutelage as the Hokage’s apprentice, he committed a grave mistake. He was on a mission to hand-deliver confidential scrolls to the other Hokages party to the Eight-Nation Treaty; he was the most secure option, because who would dare attack him after the Great War? Who could win?

“There _is_ one person,” Naruto had told Kakashi, but Kakashi only shrugged, the white coat of his station slipping carelessly from his shoulders. They both knew that Sasuke wouldn’t touch a single hair on his head, not anymore. 

It was in Ame that their paths crossed once again, Sasuke looking nothing like he had when they last saw each other. Naruto was cold, wet, hungry, and dog-tired, but Sasuke looked… Sasuke looked like he was at peace. Or approaching peace. At least, he looked closer to it than Naruto was.

Unfair. Entirely, totally unfair. The raindrops clung to his hair like morning dew on grass, his eyes dark and full of a certainty Naruto could only hope to achieve, and there was nothing neither of them could do to stop it, something so inevitable as this, the collision of two bodies for so long orbiting around each other under thrall of an invisible, indivisible gravity. They tumbled into Sasuke’s narrow cot like newborn colts, graceless, all sharp elbows and rough teeth, the horrible _rightness_ of this a hot heat radiating from within their very bones. 

They spent days there in the half-dark, hidden away from the rest of the world. Hours sipping kisses from eager lips, licking sweat from heated skin, taking pleasure from each others’ bodies. Drunk with the intimacy of being so close, they forgot what sunlight felt like on their skin, didn’t need it because they were warm enough together, all other needs inconsequential so long as they sated this hunger. They ate by the light of a single lantern, its glow casting long shadows across the cave as they moved. They fed each other with bare fingers, trapping hare and catching fish and dividing rations. When they bathed in the underground river, which fed out of the cave into a waterfall, Sasuke let Naruto wash his hair.

At some point, after working Naruto into a frenzy and then finishing inside him, Sasuke had rifled through the scrolls in curiosity. Those scrolls were supposed to be airtight with layers upon layers of seals, but Sasuke lifted them with a casual twist of his wrist, Sharingan spinning round in lazy whorls.

“Cheat,” Naruto huffed.

“I’m not the one who made it so easy.”

“They’re all the same,” Naruto told him, trailing fingers down Sasuke’s spine along the ridges of various burns and old scars. “Trade compacts under the Treaty. The original is in Konoha but everyone gets a copy. Kakashi-sensei’s trying to be nice.”

With similar ease, Sasuke replaced the seals he removed before stacking the scrolls away from their one lantern. “He doesn’t have to be.”

“But it makes it harder for them to be assholes if we’re trying to be.”

“You know that Konoha holds near-unilateral power over all of the villages right now, right,” Sasuke said, more of a deadpan statement than a true question. “No one will be an asshole unless they want to be summarily annihilated. Between you and Kakashi, no one would dare.” 

“Ah, but we’re not always going to be here, are we?” Sasuke grew quiet and still between his arms. “That’s what sensei likes to say anyway. I agree with you but I guess I know nothing, idiot apprentice that I am.”

Sasuke hadn’t said anymore, although he did slink back into the covers with Naruto, pressing them together once again and soon with a renewed urgency that was more than before. Naruto took everything he had to give and then kept taking; how long have they waited for this?

Every time they came together was never the same as the time before, but always they met halfway as though their very souls called to each other. Well, they probably did. If Naruto tried hard enough, he could even see that Sasuke smiled when they spoke to each other, a small and secret smile only Naruto was and would ever be privy to. And the heat in Sasuke’s eyes, dark and pure and powerful, whenever Naruto fucked into his body, whenever he fucked into Naruto likewise, slowly sometimes, very slowly and deliberate, as if to tell him that this, _this_ , was the best they could be, the very best their short lives could offer—Naruto bit his lip and said _yes, yes, always, yes_ —but sometimes it was Sasuke who bit his lip for him, who reached in with his tongue, who took with his cold hands and his hot mouth—and together they would come, always together, exploding in pleasure and fulfillment the likes of which they would never know elsewhere, two bright strips of heat pressed into a single line.

When they were together, they had no need of words. Their touch, their breath, their heat was enough. They had no need of the future or the past; they had no need to cling to ideals or dreams. Sometimes the path leading into the light of happiness was found in the dark. 

Six days later, it was Sasuke who broke the spell and spoke the words against his neck. “Shouldn’t you finish your mission?”

“You’re a dick,” Naruto sighed, turning over so they could face each other. All it did was invite another kiss. “I don’t wanna leave,” he spoke into Sasuke’s mouth, arms tightening at the mere thought.

“But you have to go back to Konoha,” Sasuke told him, something Naruto chose to ignore for the next two days. 

He did leave, though, eventually, after spending more than a week in that cave. If there were questions about the delay or his whereabouts after his last check-in at the border of Ame, those questions were left in silence. Kakashi knew where Sasuke was, and anyway Naruto ultimately finished the mission, safely delivering all the scrolls to their recipients without further mishap; that was all the Hokage needed to know. 

No one had to be told about Naruto’s gravest mistake, which was not that he took a week to stay with Sasuke, but that afterwards he got up and walked away.

  


* * *

  


He wakes up earlier than usual, four-thirty and full dark. The couch is particularly uncomfortable tonight, so he forgoes attempting another nap and gets up. Hinata is curled up with Boruto in their bed, both sleeping soundly in a way that Naruto can no longer manage; he takes a piss as quietly as he can and then takes his tea to the roof to wait for the sun to rise.

“Care to share your troubles, Sai?”

Chakra flickers beside him, faint but familiar. “Hokage-sama.”

“Eh, quit the title. Tea?”

Sai swings legs over the ledge and sits next to him, lifting the wolf mask halfway to enjoy the drink. “You carry more troubles than I do. I should be asking you that question.”

“My troubles would bore you to tears.”

“Tears are very difficult for me, but you can always try.”

Naruto snickers, leaning back to look up at the sky. “I just felt your chakra ripple a bit, that’s all. Anything that concerns my guard should concern me.”

“I’m concerned that you’re not sleeping,” Sai pointedly replies, having unfortunately learned tricks from Sakura and Kakashi. “This is the third time this week.”

“I’m an old man; that couch is hell on my back.”

“You have a bed.”

“Don’t wanna wake Hinata and the brat.”

“I don’t think she’d mind, and you know your son sleeps like the dead.”

“I don’t, actually,” Naruto tilts his head, “know that my son sleeps like the dead, I mean. Haven’t really been around much to know, have I.”

Sai has nothing to say in response to that, or perhaps he does but he’s holding it back. Ino has been working hard teaching him about tact recently. Naruto changes track.

“Kiba’s back. Did you get to see him?”

“Not yet,” Sai shrugs, “I’m sure they’ll throw a drinking party soon. You should come.”

“If I can,” Naruto says, careful not to commit. It has been a while since he’s been able to go to one of those parties and feel entirely comfortable with the crowd. He’s Hokage-sama to them now, and although they all grew up together, they feel like they have to hold their tongues. Naruto just skips. It’s not much of a party if he spoils all their fun.

Sai doesn’t push any further; he’s great like that. He makes an effort to understand. They sit there in comfortable silence, watching as dawn draws a bright line at the edge of the sky, until the sun breaks over the horizon at last to bathe the village in the light of a new morning. Soon, it will be time to wake.

“Hey, thanks for the company,” Naruto says, rising with their empty teacups to go downstairs and prepare. 

“An honor, Hokage-sama,” Sai kneels to salute him, mask once again in its place. 

Naruto wonders, not for the first time, if any of the past Hokages ever forgot the sound of their own name. Certainly been a while since someone called him by his own.

  


* * *

  


Midday, Hinata sends a missive from the house, asking if Naruto can take Boruto for an evening so she can be present for a Team Kurenai reunion. It isn’t everyday that Kiba is in town; these days he travels more often than not, ranging far and wide on missions of various length and sensitivity. _She missed him, of course._

He can’t figure which is a bigger problem between _that_ and his own lack of jealous concern about it. Can he pass it off as confidence in his wife’s integrity?

“It won’t be long,” Hinata quietly assures him when she comes bearing their son along with his blanket and a few toys. “I’ll just stop by to be able to say I was there and then come right back. I already fed him so he should be fine to just play.”

Naruto balances Boruto on a hip, waving her concerns away. “I got it, Hinata, stay as long as you like. It’s not everyday Kiba’s in town. Catch up with them; it’s good. This brat will be just fine with his boring old man for a night.” Boruto looks up at him, doubtful.

Although she takes a few more minutes to dither, Hinata does eventually leave with a spring in her step, Naruto closing the office door behind her with a sigh. He knows it was hard for her to quit being a shinobi to care for their child; she barely sees her teammates now, or the friends that she made in active duty. Naruto had tried to convince her that they could make it work, but she had insisted, citing clan tradition when his protests became more forceful. That was always her trump.

“Well,” Naruto sighs, looking down at his son with a small smile, “it’s just you and me for a bit, squirt. Whatcha wanna do? You wanna play a game?”

Boruto, who is four but formidable, wiggles his way to the floor and demands to play ninja games. Naruto sets up easy targets on the far wall and gives the boy a few weighted rubber balls to throw at them, making up some shit about practicing arm and aim. He might not even be lying; they’ll know in a few years if it pays out. 

Cold, sudden terror drenches Naruto. What will it be like when his son becomes a shinobi under his command? 

A ball smacks him in the forehead with enough force to knock him on his ass. “Fu—brat, _I’m_ not your target! Agh.” Maybe too much weight in those little things.

“You’re not paying _‘tention_!” Boruto scowls, arms crossed in an expression so mulish it would not have been misplaced on Naruto’s own face when he was a kid.

“Sorry, sorry, just thinking about something—”

“Tou-chan _always_ thinkin’ ‘bout _somethin’_ ,” Boruto continues to scowl, “but never ‘bout _me._ Or _kaa-chan_.”

 _Fuck._ If a kid can tell, then—

“And tou-chan always _sad_ ,” Boruto’s scowl begins to drop, softer but sadder even as his momentary anger gives away. “Why you always sad, tou-chan? You don’ like playin’ wi’ me? You don’ love me an’ kaa-chan?”

Naruto’s heart drops into his gut. “Hey. Don’t say that. Of course I love you.” Reaching out with cautious arms, he gathers his son into his lap and wipes the fat tears now free-flowing like dammed rivers released. Boruto’s little shoulders shudder with each hiccup, his tiny hands fisting tight. Naruto holds and shushes him until the tears slow, rocking them in a warm embrace because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I know I’m not the best tou-chan,” Naruto confesses with a sigh, “but never, ever doubt that I love you. You are one of the few things in my life that I will never regret.”

Boruto’s forehead wrinkles as he tries to understand such complicated words, but he does look up at Naruto and asks, “So why you always so sad, tou-chan?”

Naruto has nothing to offer his son but a broken smile. “I don’t know, kiddo. I really don’t.”

Frown fixed in place, Boruto tucks his head back against Naruto’s chest, tiny fingers now fisted into Naruto’s shirt. “Kaa-chan says that when I’m sad, I just need to think of her because I love her lots an’ she loves me back an’ that makes me happy. Maybe tou-chan do that too.”

“Maybe, kiddo,” Naruto huffs, looking out the window even as he covers his son’s little head with the span of one hand. The moon is full tonight. “Maybe you’re right.”

  


* * *

  


Herein lies the problem: how does one define happiness? 

And some might say there need not be a definition, but how does one achieve it if one doesn’t know what it looks like?

  


* * *

  


“Are you happy now?” Sasuke had asked him on the night they named him Nanadaime Hokage. “You’ve fulfilled your dream. Are you happy?”

“Were _you_ happy, when you fulfilled yours?” Naruto shot back, reaching out to put a palm flat on Sasuke’s chest. The darkening tilt of Sasuke’s eyes was enough of an answer. “I don’t know if it’s greed; I _should_ be happy.”

“But you’re not,” Sasuke smirked, lips tilting sideways in that manner that suggested he knew something you didn’t.

“I’m not.”

Sasuke took his wrist, took the hand Naruto had reached out with, and used it to haul him forward. ANBU twitched in the shadows and would have engaged if Naruto hadn’t held his other fist up: _hold._ He flicked the same wrist, three fingers: _scatter._ The last of them dispersed into a more respectable distance just as Naruto and Sasuke met midway.

Two years after the warm darkness of that cave, two years seeing each other in passing, holding each other only to let go. A cruel cycle that only made them more desperate the next time, just so as they tore into each other’s mouths like a pair of starved animals. Sasuke raked fingers through sun-kissed hair, knocking off the obtrusive hat which fell to the ground. Naruto pushed them both against a tree, tugging at sashes and ties to get to the skin underneath. In the distance beyond echoed the sounds of a rapturous village, reveling in its milestones, its survival, its hero and now its leader, but neither of them could care less.

Awash in the lush life of Hashirama’s forest, they stretched each other out and indulged in their own ecstasy. They laid out the Hokage’s cloak beneath them, stripping each other down to skin against bare skin, taking and being taken in turn, exchanging pleasure however they saw fit. Sasuke’s hand was no warmer than before, but their kisses burned hotter than fire, teeth skating over bone with just a threat of pain, just a tinge of danger. Naruto wanted, he wanted, he _wanted_ —all that Sasuke could give, and more. When he stopped to look, he found himself met with the same desire.

“Stay,” Naruto mouthed, asked, _begged_ against Sasuke’s skin, “stay here with me.” 

They rocked against each other in a dance as ancient as the stars spread above them, Sasuke giving him the only answer Naruto has grown to expect: “I can’t.”

As their sweat cooled in the night air, Sasuke told him, “I’m always with you, but I can’t be here and you know that. There’s no place for me here anymore.”

“Konoha will always be your home,” Naruto sighed, forehead pressed against the slope of a shoulder.

“Konoha isn’t home,” Sasuke refuted. “It hasn’t been for a long time.”

“Why must you be so fucking stubborn.”

“Someone has to say no to you, now that the whole village will be scraping at your feet. Keep that head of yours in check.”

“Fuck you.”

“In a second.”

Despite himself, Naruto had to snicker, shoulders shaking under the drape of Sasuke’s arm. He turned over and stretched out next to Sasuke, their bodies pressed together shoulder to knee. The moon was full that night, but the stars were still visible, twinkling from the distant vault of the blue-black sky.

“Hey.”

“Hn.”

“D’you remember, when we were genin, that escort mission into Kawa?”

“We got separated from the other two and were so fucking lost it wasn’t even funny—your fault, by the way.”

“ _You_ had the _Sharingan_ , asshole _._ Anyway, remember—”

“Just because I have the fucking Sharingan doesn’t mean I can—”

“Yeah, yeah, not my point! Anyway, remember, we were so tired on the third night we didn’t even bother putting up camp—”

“—roughed it and killed my neck with how we slept on the ground—”

“—the stars were the same! Look,” Naruto reached up to cup a few of them, “there’s rashinban. Remember? That’s how we found our way back.”

“Amazing how you can remember these things and yet you forget the most basic jutsu terminology.”

“I don’t have to know what it’s called to be able to do it!”

“Clearly.” But contrary to Sasuke’s dismissive tone, his hand reached up to overlap Naruto’s fingers, tracing another constellation besides the first. “That’s kirin there, and this one’s kogitsune.” (1)

Naruto’s breath caught in his chest. Turning his back to the stars, he crawled to level eyes with Sasuke, keeping their hands together, fingers tangled tight. He braced himself with one arm around Sasuke’s head and dipped down for a seeking kiss, crowding in so that all Sasuke could see was his face. “Sometimes I wonder,” Naruto murmured against a cheekbone, “if we’ve pissed off the universe with some grave mistakes. Sometimes it’s like we’re living the wrong lives, you and I. We can’t ever stay together. Everything about us is wrong.”

But Sasuke arched up to nip at his chin and then his mouth. “No.”

“No?”

“We’re not wrong. We were never wrong, you and I.” Sasuke kissed him first and then laced their fingers the right way. “Don’t you see? You and I are the only thing right in our lives. It’s everything else that’s wrong. The world is wrong.”

And in that moment, the light in Sasuke’s eyes were brighter than the stars above, more certain than the celestial compass that once led them home.

  


* * *

  


“Sensei.”

“Hm?”

“Define happiness.”

Kakashi lifts an eyebrow up high, lowering his teacup in a pause of silence. “…do I want to know what brought this on?”

“Ii kara, just indulge me for a bit,” Naruto insists as he runs a brush over Pakkun’s wiggling rump. “What does happiness look like?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kakashi chuckles in what sounds like disbelief, “that sounds like some philosophical shit you’re grappling with there. Never did I dream the day would come. Or at least I thought I’d be dead by the time— _ow._ ”

Naruto levels his sensei with his best rendition of ‘Unimpressed’, which admittedly is nowhere near Sakura’s milk-curdling one, but he likes to think it can still do its job. Kakashi slumps, rubbing the back of his head with a sigh.

“I mean, it’s different for everyone, isn’t it? If there was one universal definition of happiness, then there’d be no conflict. We’d be out of our jobs. But arguably, we would also no longer be human. I thought you of all people would know this, after everything.”

It takes a heartbeat to click— _Kaguya._ Tsukuyomi. The dream of a perfect world. A chill races down Naruto’s back, and not because it’s a repulsive dream, but because it’s not _entirely_ repulsive. Naruto never fell under its thrall, but…

“A dream is a dream,” Kakashi tells him, “but in the real world, everyone’s wishes cannot come true all at once. We’re human; we each want different things. One man’s joy is another man’s grief. Bullshit, I know, but that’s the way it is. You could almost say it’s beautiful bullshit, in its own fucked up way.”

“Beautiful?” Naruto snorts.

“Or poetic, maybe.”

“I just wish there weren’t so many regrets,” Naruto sighs, dropping the brush and spreading himself on the engawa instead. It’s a blustery day, the humidity making Kakashi’s hair hang limp over his head. It doesn’t look heavy, though. These days, Kakashi’s burden doesn’t look too heavy.

“Regret is like… hmm. Regret is hope without conviction. We’re always stuck between regret, which is the price to pay for the stupid shit we wish we did, and remorse, which is the cost of having actually done the stupid shit.” Kakashi flicks his pointer finger back and forth, back and forth, “Between one and the other, we’re lost, and while we’re there, life gets to play all of its little tricks.”

Naruto narrows his eyes. “Where the fuck are you getting all of this? What have you been reading?”

“Ungrateful shits you are, you students of mine,” Kakashi grumbles, crossing his arms in mock sulk. “First Sakura drinks all of my genmaicha and forgets to buy more, then _you_ come in here asking for advice you just throw back at my face—”

“Fine, _fine,_ sorry for being so ungrateful and thank you for your _sage_ advice, oh honored sensei—”

“Is it about Sasuke?” Kakashi chuckles at the look that must be on his face. “Well, is it? Ah, why am I asking, it always is. Did he come by? He didn’t stop to see the little professor.”

Naruto turns on his side to face the garden, ripples of sunlight reflecting off the pond water into his eyes. “No, he hasn’t been by. Has Sarada been asking for him?”

“Not really,” Kakashi shrugs. “She’s not old enough, I don’t think. That, or she gives no fucks. Out of sight, out of mind. She’s about that age.” 

“She likes you,” Naruto points out.

“Thank fuck for small mercies,” Kakashi mutters, “what would I do with Sakura if she didn’t.”

“You’re just scared Sakura-chan will think you’re being a bad influence and then dropkick you halfway across the continent.”

“ _I_ didn’t make me the brat’s clan-designated guardian. _I_ didn’t have kids precisely to avoid all that shit.” Kakashi sniffs, finishing the last of his teacup as he stretches his legs out. “Why do people keep handing me brats to mind? To be honest with you, I don’t know what I’m doing with Sarada half the time, but then again, I didn’t know what I was doing with you lot either, and you lot somehow worked out halfway decent, so— _ow._ ”

Kakashi withdraws from him with a grumble, rubbing at his side with the air of an injured marshmallow. Pretender. Kakashi shrouds himself with a posture of resigned age (and he’s not even that old, fuck’s sake), but Naruto knows better. He should be so grateful to have not one but two living former Hokages still in Konoha and available to guide him. Otherwise, who will he run to for questions like these?

Naruto heaves a large sigh and closes his eyes as the sunlight dies. After some time, Kakashi’s hand lands on his hair, ruffling this way and that, a strong warmth and a reminder to continue to persevere. Kakashi doesn’t say what his own happiness looks like, but Naruto doesn’t have to ask; some things are better left where they fell, undisturbed.

  


* * *

  


It was hard for Kakashi to leave the Tower. After the war, it was as if Kakashi lived for nothing else. _Survivor’s guilt,_ Sakura called it, but Naruto knew it by another name. Sakura told them not to run away from the memories, otherwise the grief would never leave; it would linger instead and lead them to wither.

“But even the pleasure of remembering is gone,” Kakashi had said, drunk and despondent, sagging into his cups. “There’s no one left to remember things with.”

Sakura had some token words of encouragement, of denial, but Naruto thought about it and realized it was true. Kakashi was among the last of a generation, his peers long dead. His friends, his mentors—what would it feel like to be left behind like that? Naruto didn’t want to imagine.

But every morning, Kakashi was there, sitting in the Tower and giving the village his all. Even on the mornings when the hangover was hell. Even on the days when it seemed like nothing was going right. 

“Why?” Naruto braved the question once, when it was just the two of them going through the list of the Hokage’s responsibilities.

“Why not?” Kakashi shrugged, scratching his cheek through the mask. “There won’t be happiness for me, not truly, but I can make it so that there can be happiness for everyone else. Or I can try.”

“That sounds almost like you’re punishing yourself, sensei.”

“For being a fool,” Kakashi muttered darkly, “for not taking the chance. I had it, once. It was right there, in my own two hands.”

“Had what?”

“Happiness, Naruto. It hides, but it’s there, and we take it for granted until it’s too late.”

Somehow, despite the warning hidden behind those words, Naruto walked into the same mistake.

  


* * *

  


Kakashi must have run his mouth, because Sakura is at his house the following weekend, under the pretense of picking up Sarada from a playdate with Boruto. Who do they think they’re kidding? Naruto’s not _that_ stupid. Boruto’s bedtime was two hours ago.

“Hey. Just here to—”

“—pick up Sarada from a playdate, yeah, I’ve heard it all before, Sakura-chan,” Naruto dismisses, although he does crouch down to kiss Sarada’s dark little head. “Hey there, little miss professor. Wore yourself out telling Boruto about how he needs to study more?”

And because Sasuke and Sakura’s daughter is an absolute (adorable) nerd, she grins wide. “Yep! Boruto-kun promised to study wi’ me again nex’ time.” Boruto, for his part, is sprawled on the couch, head pillowed on a book, fast asleep. 

“Excellent. You’ll make a scholar out of him yet!” Naruto straightens, sighing when Sakura pins him down with that Look. “Right, Hinata, give me a sec with Sakura-chan? Looks like I’ve done something that warrants a lecture yet again.”

Hinata only chuckles, shooing them along; she’s been more lively recently, spending more time with her teammates now that Kiba’s home. Naruto hopes he doesn’t come looking for another mission anytime soon; it would suck to have to take away whatever makes Hinata smile so much.

Once outside, Sakura corners him by the door, arms crossed and eyes intent. She doesn’t say anything. At once, Naruto holds his hands up in surrender. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry?”

“What _is_ the matter? You tell me, Hokage-sama.”

“I don’t—”

“Kakashi said you came to him the other day and asked all these weird questions. Did Sasuke-kun come by? He usually stops to see Sarada at least, or check in with Kakashi-sensei about clan stuff, but he hasn’t, so did something happen with you two again? Because I’m about _one-hundred-and-ten percent done_ with your shit, the two of you have _got_ to grow up a bit and stop doing this—”

“Sasuke didn’t come by, Sakura-chan, relax. Can’t a guy have a brain and ask some questions sometimes?”

“Not you.”

“Ouch.”

“What is it?” Sakura asks him, eyes concerned and heavy the way they get when it’s something serious. “What’s wrong, Naruto?”

Naruto shrugs, throwing his arms open. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

Sakura waits.

Naruto tips his head back, closes his eyes, and then rubs at his face with his good hand. “Everything’s wrong.”

“Everything’s wrong?”

“But really nothing.”

Sakura is quiet again.

Naruto feels a sudden wash of guilt. He’s not even making sense. “I’m sorry, Sakura-chan, I’m really just wasting your time, you’ve got other shit to be worrying over instead of my stupid issues, just forget it—”

“Are you having a midlife crisis right now?”

“A wha?”

Sakura crosses her arms again. “A midlife crisis. You know. Questioning your life decisions. Thinking about your goals and directions. Wondering what’s next.”

“Uh…”

She continues, “Because that’s what it sounds like, and I’ll be very fucking honest with you, you don’t wear midlife crisis well. You’re moping. Sai’s worried, Shikamaru’s worried, Kakashi’s worried, now I’m worried.”

 _Yeah, my kid’s worried too,_ Naruto doesn’t add.

“Are you divorcing Hinata? If that’s what needs to happen, all well and good, but be a gentleman about it and do it the right way—”

“Whoa, _whoaa_ , slow down, _what_?” Naruto gapes at her, shocked. “Who the fuck gave you _that_ idea?”

Sakura raises both eyebrows, looking him up and down in judgment. “Excuse my impertinence, Hokage-sama, but your marriage has always been one of political expedience and everybody knows it. You’re not happy and neither is she. And you and I both know who it is that makes you happy. So if you haven’t thought about it, then maybe you should.”

Naruto raises his hands again, this time in true surrender, because he is honestly floored. “Nothing is decided.”

“Well then maybe you _should_ decide,” Sakura sighs, “because, Naruto, you’re miserable.”

“I’m not,” Naruto tokenly refutes, although there is no conviction behind his words.

“Are you happy, then?” 

“I don’t fucking know, are you?”

“Yes,” Sakura answers at once, words level and echoing with confidence. “I’m happy.”

Of course she is. She made herself happy. She wanted something and when it didn’t come to her, she made it happen with her own two hands. As much as Naruto wants to hate her for it, only a grudging admiration wells up from inside.

“Are you _happy_?” Sakura asks again, clearly not expecting an answer because she brushes past him to reach for the door. “Make a decision, Naruto, like you used to do. And then commit to it. Just get it done.”

She takes her daughter—her and Sasuke’s daughter—back home in her arms, melting into the darkness as she walks away from their porchlight. Naruto sits outside for a while with his thoughts. If Hinata wonders, she does not ask. She never asks.

  


* * *

  


“I’m going to ask,” Sasuke had said, “because likely no one else has: do you know what you’re getting into?” His eyes were tight and stormy the way they got when he was truly angry, something that hadn’t been pointed at Naruto’s direction for some time.

“Yes,” Naruto said, and then shook his head. “No. Fuck.”

“You would _think_ that saving the whole _world_ in its entirety is _enough leverage_ to secure you your clout,” Sasuke hissed, near motionless despite his rage, “and yet they ask this of you after all that you’ve done.”

“They don’t _ask_ it of me, they’re making a _suggestion_ , Sasuke.”

“That’s because clans never _ask_ , dobe, it’s for beggars to ask.”

“What choice do I have? Upset them all by throwing their suggestions back at their faces?”

“That hasn’t stopped you before.”

“I was a kid before!”

“You had _principle_ before, Naruto.”

“Look, Konoha needs my help. I need to be there to support them through the rebuilding. This is just one step—”

“What does _she_ have to say about this arrangement?”

Naruto inhaled, collecting his temper. “Hinata has agreed in order to honor the wishes of her clan.”

“Hmm, of course she has, she’s always had her eyes on you since we were kids.” A blind man could have read the disdain in Sasuke’s eyes.

“Sasuke—”

“Who would have thought _you_ would be the one turning your back on your own words after all this time—”

" _What_ ,” Naruto yelled, “am I supposed to _do_ , Sasuke, when _you won’t come back with me!”_  
  
Sasuke grew cold and distant, taking a step back from him, a step Naruto should have stopped. “Don’t you blame this on me.” 

“Sasuke—”

“I’m not the one agreeing to sell himself for political leverage, and I’m certainly not the one allowing myself to be manipulated by the _rats_ in that rotten village. And you can’t ask me to go back there, you have _no right_ —not after what they did to my clan, my whole family, my _brother_ — _I have not forgotten. I will never forget. I can never forgive._ ”

Sharingan flashing in warning, Sasuke took another step back, and then another, Naruto standing there with no words to offer in return. Before he fled into the dark, Naruto should have said something. Naruto should have stopped him.

_I should have gone with him. That was my chance._

  


* * *

  


When he asks Tsunade, though, she disagrees. “If you had gone with him and left Konoha a mere two years after becoming Hokage, we would be nowhere near where we are now. The security of your presence attracts economy and investment, which is the only reason we’ve been able to rebuild so fast. But you already know this, so why do I need to say it?”

Naruto shrugs, as always feeling like a twelve-year-old again whenever he comes to sit and talk in her hospital office. “Just want to hear it from someone else every now and then.”

“Since when did you need so much external validation?”

“Since Sakura-chan told me to divorce my wife because we’re both unhappy.”

Tsunade pauses, peering over the rim of her reading glasses to really look at Naruto. “Well, that escalated fast.”

Naruto _sighs_. “Apparently, _everyone_ knows we married for politics, and _everyone_ knows we’re unhappy. So _everyone_ thinks we should just separate and be done with it, except—”

“The Hyuugas are going to roast you,” Tsunade shakes her head, “and Utatane won’t like it either. Koharu won’t care as much; he doesn’t think the personal lives of the Hokage should weigh into any part of Konoha’s government, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that it does. In the absence of the Uchiha, the Hyuugas are the largest political faction in the village and they know it. The old bloodlines are alive but apart from the Sarutobi, most are small clans now, after the war, single unit families like the Nara.”

“Yeah, that.”

“And that’s why you married her.”

“No real choice. Feel like a total dick for it. Feel bad for the kiddo too.” Naruto rolls over on her couch and presses his face into a cushion. “Can’t believe I’m saying this but I think I wanna go back to when we were at war.”

“Every Hokage faces challenges unique to their own time, Naruto. Wartime was not yours. Peacetime is.”

“Yeah, but none of us are ever taught how to function in peace.”

Tsunade starts to chuckle, leaning back in her chair, just barely visible at the corner of Naruto’s sight. “You’re talking yourself in circles, kid. What are you trying to excuse?”

“The fact that I chose a path that makes me so unhappy.”

“That’s a simple one,” Tsunade says, and when he turns to look at her, she smiles with the wisdom of pain and time. “When you made that choice, you judged that Konoha was worth more than your happiness. And that’s why you’re the Hokage, Naruto. You made the sacrifice.”

  


* * *

  


Sasuke was there to witness his and Hinata’s marriage. As the last Uchiha and party to the deliverance of their known world from Kaguya, Sasuke’s presence could not be questioned. He was docile enough, but a watchful shadow throughout, making himself easily known to ANBU and exerting no effort to hide. As soon as the formalities concluded, he came up to Naruto and offered his well-wishes.

Six months. They hadn’t seen each other in six months. Sasuke had walked away from him six months past, and Naruto had let him.

His gift was a small parcel that contained a bracelet of smooth black beads. Naruto turned it over in both hands, conscious of everyone watching them, conscious of Hinata’s curiosity flickering beside him.

“What’s this for?” Naruto asked, slipping the beads over his flesh wrist.

“A reminder,” Sasuke said, “for when you need it. Of rashinban. Each bead is a star.”

It took all of Naruto not to grab him and run then; he had to close his eyes and swallow the pain, jaw working as he took a breath.

“Thanks, Sasuke. I won’t forget.”

Sasuke looked at him, nodded at Hinata, and took his leave. Watching him go that time might have been harder than the very first.

  


* * *

  


Two and a half months later, they saw each other again, although this time, Sasuke came to the Tower bearing no gifts but paperwork for him to sign.

“What’s this?” he had asked, untying the formal-looking scroll sealed with the Uchiha mon. It fell open on his desk, spelling out Kakashi’s name and provisions for Sakura to—”What?”

“She’s pregnant,” Sasuke said, tone even as you please, “and she wants to keep it. I tried talking her out of it but she won’t budge. You’re welcome to try if you like.”

Naruto stared at the paper in disbelief. “You slept with Sakura-chan.”

“Once. Drunk. Or I was, but with how determined she is to keep the kid, I’m thinking she wasn’t really that drunk.”

“When?”

“When do you think?”

Sasuke was only in Konoha once this year, and that was for Naruto’s own wedding. “You’re an asshole.”

“We’ve established that.” Sasuke nodded to the scroll. “I need your signature. Kakashi is the only one I can trust in this village with a child that might develop a Sharingan, and although she’ll be the mother, I don’t trust Sakura to really understand what it means to be part of a clan like the Uchiha. At the very least, I’m not letting her sit on the Council for the clan.”

Numb, Naruto took his seal in hand. “Did you really try to talk Sakura-chan into aborting your own child?”

“I never wanted a child. I still don’t. The curse of my bloodline shouldn’t be allowed to continue. And can you imagine? Me, a father. I barely had one of my own, how would I know what to do?”

“None of us know what to do, Sasuke, but we don’t just tell people to abort their own children.”

“I didn’t _tell_ her to, I asked and she refused. Gotta hand it to her; she knew what she wanted and took it with her own hands. More than I can say for most people.”

“You mean me,” Naruto resealed the scroll, handing it back to Sasuke with trembling fingers. 

“You and I both.”

Sasuke remained standing there for a while, the two of them a study in silence and stillness, underneath which their bound souls strained to be together the way they were meant to be, the way they could be if they dared.

Maybe Sasuke saw something in his eyes. “I’ll be back, don’t worry.”

Naruto managed a lopsided smile, at least, to save some of his pride. “I thought you said Konoha wasn’t home anymore.”

“It isn’t,” Sasuke turned, leaving already when he just got back, “but my child calls it home.”

He was brilliant at exits like that, always taking with him the final word, leaving Naruto behind with nothing but a gasp of air and the phantom pains of a limb sheared off. That night, Hinata told him that she, too, was pregnant with their first child.

  


* * *

  


“I see Tsunade was not exaggerating. You _are_ in crisis,” Orochimaru notes as he gracefully sits down even with a child clinging to his robes. “Mitsuki, where are your manners?”

“Oh,” Mitsuki blinks, looking up at Naruto. “’Lo.” He ducks back under the fall of Orochimaru’s sleeve, although once in a while, his golden eyes come out to peek.

Naruto chuckles. “He should be the same age as Boruto, right?”

“Three years and ten months. He grows well. The genetic modifications are so far successful.” It will never get old for Naruto, hearing Orochimaru speak with such open fondness for another human being. Parenthood suits him the way it doesn’t for pretty much everyone in Naruto’s cohort. As if privy to his very thought, Orochimaru points out, “You and your friends married too early, had children too fast. You know so little of yourselves and yet you made yourselves responsible for young lives like this one. You made it harder than it had to be. If only you’d waited just a little while more... ah, but war does that to people.”

“Does what, make us all want kids?” Naruto snorts, laying out the scrolls they both need to look over, border and non-aggression and trade agreements with the rising new Sound.

“Nothing else declares survival like the wail of a newborn child. Tell me, were you with your wife when your son was born?”

“Uhh, yeah. Though the matrons didn’t let me in the room.”

“Pity. Childbirth teaches you respect for life and the extraordinary gift of women. Are you close with your son?”

Naruto scratches the back of his head, wondering if they are still here to discuss their respective villages or if this is something else. “Let’s just say there’s room for improvement. I’ll take advice if you’ve got any.”

“Do you know that Sasuke asked me for the same?” Orochimaru chuckles at his surprise. “He passed through Sound a few years ago and stopped for a few nights. His daughter must have been about a year old then. He asked if he should even establish himself as a figure in her life, or if he should just vanish entirely, allowing her to carve her own path.”

“And?”

“I told him then what I now tell you. Better not to be there at all, than being there but not being present. There are less regrets that way. Stay only if you can commit. Otherwise, leave and trust that they can survive without you. Children are resilient, much more than you realize. They will learn and grow, whether you are here or not.”

Naruto watches Mitsuki, who seems to be amusing himself with the silk brocade on his father’s hairclip. “Is that why you won’t leave him behind in Sound? They tell me you take him everywhere with you.”

“He is mine to grow and protect. I have chosen to stay by his side.”

“Every parent should choose to stay for their child,” Naruto frowns.

“Even if it makes them unhappy, and therefore makes the child unhappy?” Orochimaru huffs, gentling Mitsuki’s tugging hands with his own. “What are you trying to achieve as a parent?”

Between them extends a pause, which would have been awkward if Orochimaru wore more judgment.

“If you don’t know, then you haven’t been a parent at all. If you can’t be one, then maybe you shouldn’t force it.”

“You’re one of the pro-divorce committee.”

Orochimaru scoffs, “I would have told you not to marry in the first place. There is nothing lonelier than condemning yourself to spend the rest of your life with someone you can’t talk to, or much worse, someone you can’t share silence with.”

Unbidden, a memory of Jiraiya comes to mind. “You know, Ero-Sennin said the same thing to me when we were traveling.” He had asked, many years ago, why Jiraiya never settled with a wife, and Jiraiya had told him that there were only very few people in the world he could share silence with in peace, none of them particularly good material for marriage.

Inelegantly, Orochimaru snorts. “That lech, married? That would be something to see. Where in the world can you find one woman that would make him happy?”

But Naruto suspects, if Jiraiya were still alive, that the simple sight of Mitsuki weaving knots into Orochimaru’s hair would be more than enough to make him happy. Jiraiya never needed a woman. If only he had lived long enough to be here.

“It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Naruto shrugs, “and Konoha needed me here. I couldn’t very well leave, not when so much of the village’s future was at stake.”

Considering, Orochimaru hums, turning snakelike eyes to seemingly peer into his very soul. “Konoha needed you? Or do you mean _you_ needed Konoha?” 

Beyond the doors, Kakashi’s chakra approaches, Tsunade and Shikamaru close behind.

Orochimaru lowers his voice and continues, “The village is like a child: it is resilient and will grow, with or without you. You’ve held its hand through its second infancy; I think it’ll survive if you decide to take a step back.”

Definitely part of the pro-divorce committee. Naruto is beginning to wonder just how unhappy he looks if everyone is telling him to step away from Konoha, even those who aren’t even in Konoha.

Just as Kakashi opens the door for Tsunade, who breezes in and appropriates the tea as if its still her office, Orochimaru pointedly remarks on Sasuke’s current whereabouts. “The most recent reports say he’s with the monks on the far side of Myogadani, in the mountain monasteries where they study healing and live in peace.”

“Sightings of a wild Sasuke?” Shikamaru snickers, chair creaking as he leans back. “I’m surprised he hasn’t moved yet. He’s been there a while.” No one asks where Shikamaru gets his information; the shadows are everywhere.

“It is a beautiful place, easy to linger and difficult to leave.” Orochimaru rearranges Mitsuki beside him, fixing the boy with a firm look. “We are about to work, Mitsuki, you must be quiet and behave.”

Mitsuki blinks, considers, and then asks, “Wagashi after?” (2)

“Wagashi after, but _only_ if you behave.”

Having successfully bargained like the very best of them, Mitsuki nods and settles against his father, twining more hair around his restless little fingers in silence. The adults then sit down to work.

  


* * *

  


Sarada and Boruto were born nine days apart, Sakura’s labor seemingly triggering Hinata’s in turn. The two of them became close friends after the war, owing perhaps to Sakura’s more stationary role in the hospital, or the fact that they both carried the children of their generation’s most powerful shinobi.

Naruto barely saw them during that time, which was the height of the village’s complicated rebirth; his presence was often demanded in so many places at once that Kakashi remained in the Tower, shouldering half the burden despite having officially retired. When ANBU told him of Hinata’s labor pains, he had a bunshin mediating a conflict over property lines, several others helping clear rubble from the edge of the village, a few bunshin checking in on the state of the border patrols, and the last two debating with engineers over the particulars of a proposed outer wall. Given such circumstances, he did what seemed reasonable and split himself one more time, sending a bunshin to the Hyuuga household where Hinata was in the hands of the clan matrons and medics. His presence was barely noted; they kept him out of the room and did everything that they had to do by themselves.

When at last, after a few hours of restless waiting, they let him in to hold the weight of his newborn son, the first and only thought in his head was of his own father. _Did he even get to hold me like this? Was there time?_

Overwhelmed with a surge of grief and love in equal measure, he cradled his child and hid tears in the swaddled blanket, unable to even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the life he held in his arms. He would never be the best father the world could offer, but he loved his son beyond any measure in the universe.

Two days later, Sasuke came to visit, trailing after Sakura who had their dark-haired daughter in her arms. Pleasantries and well-wishes aside, the two women immediately took to each other, disappearing upstairs awash in talk about bleeding and stretch marks and breastfeeding—things Naruto and Sasuke did not need to know. The two of them were left with two swaddled sleeping infants and an ocean of awkward silence which they had no means to cross.

After some time, Naruto cleared his throat and asked, “When did you get in?”

“Yesterday. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. You too.”

Once again, the silence. Naruto busies himself with pouring them tea, although he kept darting glances at their children who were tucked in side by side. _Did we sleep like that too when we were young? Kakashi-sensei says our mothers were friends._

“They’re small,” Sasuke remarked, eyes also trained upon the infants.

“Smaller than I thought they’d be,” Naruto agreed. Notably, the last time they spoke was when Sasuke came to ask for his signature on a scroll.

Shoulders sagging in a posture of defeat only Naruto would be privy to, Sasuke rubbed his face. “What are we supposed to do now.”

Naruto barked out a laugh, short and harsh. “Fuck if I know.”

“I really didn’t want to be a father.”

“Admit it, you cried when you held her.”

“She has Itachi’s eyes,” Sasuke said, “my mother’s eyes. Shisui’s eyes.”

“What is it with your clan and eyes? Did you pay attention to the rest of her? Check if she has ten fingers and ten toes?” he shot back in an attempt to lighten the conversation. If he started crying now, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“My daughter,” Sasuke scowled, “has a perfect fucking form.”

“The world welcomes a new little Uchiha. You need more than one if you want to rebuild your clan,” Naruto said, not without a touch of bitterness.

“You deaf as well as dumb? I just said I didn’t want to be a father.”

“Do any of us? Really. I don’t think anyone walks into this knowing what to expect.”

There were several of their cohort who expected children soon; they wouldn’t be alone in their terror for long. That being said, Sasuke didn’t seem to have any intention to stay...

“How long will you be in town for?” Naruto asked, hating himself for wishing that they could leave together even though here were their newborn children sleeping before them.

“A week at most.”

“Where will you go next?”

“The islands to the east, maybe.”

“How often will you be back?”

“Stop,” Sasuke sighed, “you’re only making this harder than it has to be.”

And Naruto, who had developed a new habit of fiddling with his new bracelet, spun the beads round and round until it could lend him some semblance of calm. Sasuke reached out and pushed his hands away, encircling his wrist with fingers that were long and calloused and colder than ever. 

“We had the stars, you and I.”

“Stop,” Sasuke said again, so Naruto returned the grip, steadying himself as he held a finger to Sasuke’s fast pulse. This was a heartbeat he knew better than his own. A line of desire throbbed between them, thick enough to cut with a blade. Their eyes met, but just like before, it was Sasuke who spoke the words and broke the spell. “You swore an oath, and I will not be the reason you turn your back on it.”

“Of course,” Naruto knew that. _I swore an oath._

They sat like that until the women came down in search of snacks and their still sleeping newborns. If they noticed the unspoken words, the tension, the downcast eyes, no one said a word; matters as these were best left to wither and die in silence.

  


* * *

  


Naruto is slogging through a backlog of paperwork, a few days after Orochimaru’s unsolicited parenting advice, when the vertigo-inducing sensation of a bunshin dismissing itself makes him pause. Memories wash over him, bright flashes of emotion and sight: the playground near their house, the swing set, his son in the air. Laughter, bright and clear as springwater, a hand on Boruto’s back. Kiba’s hand. Akamaru barking. Hinata must be nearby, but nowhere in sight. “Again!” Boruto demands with a grin; the sunlight on his face reflects nothing but joy.

 _I should stop pretending I haven’t yet made up my mind._ The decision’s been made for some time now; what is he waiting for? 

That same night, after they tuck the boy into bed, Naruto takes Hinata’s hand and sits her down at the table.

“We need to talk.”

“Are you leaving?” Hinata pre-empts.

 _Well-kept secret means everyone knows._ Naruto huffs. “Not yet, that requires some work. But—this isn’t working.”

“No,” she agrees, “it’s not.” There is no judgment in her eyes, no fear and no anger; only warm acceptance and a well of quiet regret.

He has to fight the guilt that wells up in his throat; he never wanted to hurt her. He says as much.

She smiles. “I know. You’re not cruel like that, at least not to me. But sometimes you are cruel to yourself, I think. If I knew, before we married, how unhappy it would make you—”

“I’m not—”

“You _are,_ " she insists, “unhappy and unfulfilled. I have eyes and a brain; it doesn’t take a genius. Do you know that I haven’t heard you laugh in months? Not genuinely, not like you used to when we were kids.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think any of us can laugh like that anymore.”

“Don’t blame it on the war,” Hinata sighs, shaking her head. “The war did a lot of things but this is not one of them. This is all on us.” 

She turns her teacup around all the way, looking into its depths as if it can offer them the answers to all the problems they’ve made. “When we got married, I thought... well. I thought a lot of things. But that was the child in me clinging to a dream I thought I wanted. So let me say this much.” She looks up and meets his eyes, every inch the head of her clan, strength shining from within her in a manner that makes her glow. “I don’t love you. I thought I did. I love someone else, and I want to be with him instead, before it’s too late and I lose him too. I refuse to let you take all the fault. We can do this one last thing together, if only for our son. Do you understand?”

Naruto inhales and nods. Hinata is too kind. All he can do, in the face of her kindness, is hang his head in surrender.

“Not all of it was bad,” she amends, words softer although the determination behind them hasn’t waned.

“Our son is a gift,” Naruto quietly agrees, “but he’ll be better off with you.”

“Will you at least come back and visit? He should see you sometimes so he doesn’t forget you.”

“I’ll always come back, Hinata. I love this village too much.”

“Despite everything?” and she means despite all the unreasonable things they have asked of him, they expect of him, every day and every moment, when they put him on a pedestal and make him into their perfect leader.

Naruto chuckles. “Because of everything. After all, I am the Hokage.”

“You are,” she says, stroking his cheek with warm fingers, “but you are more than just that. Wherever you go from here, I hope you find what you’re looking for, and that you can be kind enough to yourself to take it. I wish you nothing but happiness.”

“I’m sorry that this is the way it has to end.”

She sighs again, a note of relief. “It’s alright. It is. Everything eventually comes to an end. We can make it a new beginning.”

All he can give her then is a sad, sincere smile.

  


* * *

  


For the two years directly preceding his appointment as Hokage, he was known as Kakashi’s apprentice but in truth he was Kakashi’s extension. Where Kakashi could not go, he went; with whom Kakashi could not speak, he spoke. He carried the authority of the Hokage’s office, his words worth as much as Kakashi’s if not more. Those two years were spent on the road more than they were spent at home, such that every time he returned to Konoha during the rebuilding, he always felt shocked and a little bit lost.

Maybe that was why he found himself enjoying the road more than being restless at home. It was just like traveling with Jiraiya, these missions that took him far and wide. He covered distances more comfortably than any shinobi the village could spare and he could go alone; he was the most practical solution.

And then, when the going was rough, there was Sasuke to look forward to. 

Whenever he ranged outside of Konoha’s rebuilt walls, Sasuke would find him, no matter what mountain he was scaling or what desert he was traversing. Once, they slogged through a jungle together, Sasuke keeping him company until Konoha’s very border. In the beginning it was curiosity and a bit of boredom, but towards the end it became a ritual, a compulsion, a consuming need to always be together and have each other at hand. If Sakura had known, she would have called it unhealthy—but then again, Sakura has been calling their mutual obsession unhealthy since they were twelve.

Without fail, without hastening, they parted and returned to each other, the way waves returned only to disappear. They were two moons orbiting each other, obeying invisible laws that were constant and universal, a rhythm that their hearts mutually understood. In the desert steppes of Kaze, they gave chase to each other with no heed for damage, no mind to pay anyone else but the burn of their own chakra. Atop the mountains and above the dramatic valleys of Tsuchi, they ate and slept and watched the stars side by side. In the surreal silence of Yuki, during winter nights that were long and deep and dark, they stretched upon the snow and watched the heavens dance with unearthly light.

 _Stay with me,_ their souls said to each other, _and don’t let go._

If Naruto had to define happiness, it would look like this.

  


* * *

  


Almost a year later, Naruto is the one who finds Sasuke, in a valley where the fog hangs like the breath of a god that slumbers in the mountains. Raindrops cling to Sasuke’s hair like morning dew on grass. Out here, they exist beyond boundaries, beyond the normal reaches of space and time. Just the two of them and this thing that ties them together, a bond that is like all things large and slow and powerful: tides, storms, and the movements of the stars. 

There are no words. Naruto goes to be with him and the possibilities are endless. Time spins out before them, a golden tunnel of years. A thousand choices. Time like sunlight. Time like wealth.

When at last they touch, Naruto finally understands: happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.

 

  
_fin._  


  


* * *

  


**NOTES & REFERENCES**

**(1) Kirin** is one of Sasuke’s seriously over-powered badass lightning techniques but, in real life, is actually the Japanese name of _Camelopardalis_ , a southern sky constellation. **Kogitsune** (lit. _little fox_ ) is both a reference to Naruto and the Japanese name of _Vulpecula_ , also a real life southern sky constellation. Lastly, **Rashinban** means “compass” and is the Japanese name of the _Pyxis_ constellation in the nothern sky.

 **(2) Wagashi** are traiditional Japanese sweets, such as _daifuku, dango, senbei_ , and _yatsuhashi_. They’re usually not as sweet as Western delicacies—some are downright savory, I think—but delicious nonetheless. Usually paired with tea, the type depending on the season.

 **(3) On the politics of this fic** : there’s actually a fair bit of it, just not elaborated upon because it didn’t flow well with the story-telling.

➤ As briefly discussed above, Naruto’s presence would have been an incredible bolster to Konoha’s security after the war; having Kakashi is nice, and Sakura’s there too, but ultimately the one they’d want is Naruto. Naruto would have known this going into his role as the Hokage—Kakashi and Tsunade would have warned him—but perhaps he didn’t quite understand how much it would restrict his actions.

➤ I don’t put it past the Hyuuga clan to angle for power this way. Say what you want about Naruto being their savior and all the fuzzy feelings of everyone being friends in their one happy village, but power is power, and Naruto is young, both as a person and in his role. I imagine that Hinata too comes out of that war with ideas about what she must do in the name of duty, but no Neji to check her before she does them. Throw in her feelings for Naruto, add Naruto’s pervasive feelings of inadequacy since childhood, sprinkle a little peer pressure from everyone else getting married and having kids, well.

➤ Don’t be mad at me about Sakura! She might come off as a bit of a bitch for doing what she did, but all told, I’m actually fucking proud of her in this fic. She knew what she wanted and she took it! I’ve followed Naruto since it first came out on JUMP (doesn’t that date me) and have gone through cycles of loving Sakura and hating Sakura (because Kishimoto and female characters don’t mix), but throughout the years, the one thing that never faded was my admiration of her tenacity and intelligence. I also used to be a Sasuke/Sakura fangirl (when I was like nine, don’t judge my prepubescent feels) and though that quickly ended during the Wave arc, I always knew that they were a distinct canon possibility because that’s just how manga works. That being said, I truly don’t see Sasuke staying with her—he has never once looked at her all these years, let’s be real—but teenagers do stupid shit when drunk, including fucking around and getting pregnant. If she _did_ get pregnant, she’d want to keep it. Sasuke would be torn inside, but outwardly ask her to end it. (He’s an asshole like that.) But if she had ended it, he would have regretted that for the rest of his life. (He’s a stupid asshole like that.)

➤ By instating Kakashi as his daughter’s guardian and clan stand-in for the Council, Sasuke is giving Naruto a magnanimous gift. For Naruto, Kakashi becomes a powerful political ally; he now represents _two_ clans, the Hatake and the Uchiha, on top of being ex-Hokage. To break that down a bit more: the Hatake seems to have been a relatively small clan, Kakashi being the only survivor, but the Uchiha (despite being down to one survivor) still carries weight behind its name, especially in light of what Sasuke did against Kaguya and the redemonstrated prowess of their bloodline. While it seems paltry, I think it would have made a huge difference in the Council, because we all know Kakashi will come down on Naruto’s side 100% of the time. This way, Naruto no longer needs unilateral support from the Hyuuga clan; unfortunately, Sasuke can only do it because he got Sakura pregnant after Naruto got married into said clan. All shades of fucked up and too late, as usual of Team 7.

 **(4)** “Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the world.” – Orhan Pamuk, _Snow_

 **(5)** I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently in an attempt to jump-start the writing drive, so this fic owes a lot to André Aciman’s _Enigma Variations_ , Abby Geni’s _The Lightkeepers_ , and Paulo Coelho’s _Manuscript Found in Accra_. Although there are direct quotes from Aciman, most of the influence is ideological. These books moved me, and along with the songs I mention below, created the drive for this headcanon.

 **(6)** This fic is inspired by a whole lot of Utada Hikaru songs because I’m an undying fan. One of philosopher!Kakashi’s nice lines draws inspiration from her directly: “everyone’s wishes cannot come true all at once” is a chorus line from her song _Dareka no negai ga kanau koro_ (lit. ‘When everyone’s wishes come true’), an old Utada classic. ([listen here](http://www.mediafire.com/file/x9ave8xtgzw29o6/06_Dareka_no_Negai_ga_Kanau_Koro.mp3/file)) 

Her new song _Hatsukoi_ (lit. ‘first love’) is another culprit, particularly the part where she hits us hard on the first stanza and sings, “All of us humans, we naturally fall in love, but if I hadn’t met you, no one would have made me feel like I do.” Agh!! And the bridge: “All the things I want, they’re in a place I can see and reach; I can’t not chase after them, but is it right? The truth is no one knows.” I about died listening to this song. Now you go listen too! ([listen here](http://www.mediafire.com/file/huds4ouwctppwdo/03_Hatsukoi.mp3/file)) 

This fic’s theme song, though, is _Yūnagi_ (lit. ‘evening calm’) from her new 20th anniversary album _Hatsukoi_. The song (well, the whole album) has Buddhist concepts littered everywhere, from 無常 mujō (impermanence) to 欲望 yokubō (desire, appetite, greed) to the suffering of human life. It’s a beautiful album overall, sounds to me like she’s been doing some soul-searching and found comfort in Buddhism, but _Yūnagi_ struck me in particular because of its focus on the fleeting nature of time and how we tend to waste it. It’s actually sort of morbid, a song about death, but. At the end of the song, there is a section where she sings and it sounds just like Buddhist chanting; with the strings that swell and die like the waves, it’s a gorgeous touch. You can listen/download [here for the song](http://www.mediafire.com/file/haaaj4kf4j0mstb/11_Yuunagi.mp3/file) or here if you want the whole album.


End file.
